Look to Franchises for Ideas
After years on the corporate treadmill, Betsy Ludlow found it refreshing to work out on actual gym equipment. She had spent 18 years at American Express Co., rising to senior vice president of corporate services with 100 or so people answering to her. But nearing her 50th birthday, she grew to hate her commute, the time away from her two children, and the endless stress. In 2000, she took a buyout.She began exercising with her sister-in-law at a Curves fitness center, the fast-growing franchise of ‘express’ women’s fitness centers. It offers a 30-minute workout on a circuit of hydraulic weight machines — no men, no pressure to wear spandex. ‘I absolutely loved it,’ she says.
She loved it so much, in fact, that she decided that she would buy a franchise. She contacted the Waco, Texas-based Curves International, ordered up the franchise offering circular and registered for a training program. She began envisioning how she would operate her own Curves outlet, and as she planned, she read the contract over and over. Some of her ideas, she saw — such as being open on Sundays, for one — weren’t allowed. ‘I didn’t like feeling boxed in with someone else’s concept,’ she said.
The Solution: Using her buyout money, she decided to attempt her own version of a women’s express gym.
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